Every wonder why beef is called beef?
Seriously, why don't English-speakers stop pussyfooting around and call a cooked cow a cooked cow? And, while we're at it, why do we fry up a pig's tenderloins and then, as if the meat has metamorphosized over the flame, name the final product pork? Is there something barbaric about telling our friends and neighbors, "I am going to gnaw on some grilled swine flesh this 4th of July. Care to join me?"
Well, the Norman French apparently thought it was unseemly.
In 1066, the Normans invaded the territories of the Old English-speaking Germanic tribes that had settled in what is now England. As a result the Norman language merged with Old English (which, at this point, was closer to German) and had a baby that modern scholars like to call Middle English.
In the halcyon days before the invasion, meat was meat. That is to say, if you wanted to get all carnivorous at the mead hall with your boys, you would order up a cut of oxen. Not 'beef,' nor the even less manly 'buef,' as the Normans would have said.
If I'm not mistaken, there is a reason why we inherited 'pork' and 'beef' but no equivalent Frenchified terms for chicken or lamb.
In the societies of the invaded English territories, the Normans became the gentry over the Germanic peasants. It seems that the new nobility ate beef, pork, and veal. They didn't eat chicken or lamb. Their Germanic servants obviously had to learn the names of their masters' favorite dishes. And so the Norman terms eventually trickled into Old English and conquered the former, less pleasant customs.
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